Sometimes these idiom stories do a good job tying themselves into the history of the idiom; sometimes they’re more just a vaguely-related tale that will help you remember the idiom. This is one of the latter. This idiom story actually contains 2 other idioms (see the vocab list), so, hey, idiom party.

You might be interested in the way that the author of this story talks about chess. To “play chess” is written like this: 下棋 – xià qí, or literally “to put down chess pieces”. But when we’re talking about someone’s skill level of chess play – in otherwords, the level of chess mastery – the author uses 棋艺 – qí yì, or literally “chess art”. So 下棋 is a verb, “to play chess”, while 棋艺 is a noun, as in “mad chess skillz”.

Long ago there was a chess master named Qiu whose chess skills were superlative.

Qiu had two students who studied chess with him, one student studied with concentrated focus and energy. The other, however, wasn’t like that, he thought studying chess was very easy, and there was no need to take it seriously. When the teacher was explaining, although the [the student] sat there, his eyes seemed to be on the chess pieces, he was actually thinking: “If I go to the countryside right now and shoot a goose, I’ll have a lovely dinner.” Because he was always indulging in flights of fancy and absent-mindedness, nothing the teacher said ever sunk in.

As a result, although the two students studied were taught at the same time by the same master, one improved quickly and became a superior chess player, while the other never learned much at all.

14 comments to "Story Behind the Idiom: Zhuan Xin Zhi Zhi"

I love the text but I don’t understand the use of 可 in the sentence with him looking at the chess pieces while being absent minded. I thought it has some idea of 可是 but that seems to be taken by 却 later. Can anyone explain this please

i’m a chinese.about the question of you。可是 and 却 are very similar in the meaning。but，there is some difference in the emotion of them。
such as
我认为这是对的，可是你不这么认为
我认为这是对的，你却不这么认为
我认为这是对的，可是你却不这么认为
the emotion of stress about “你（you）”，become more and more heavy。

i’m a chinese.about the question of you。可是 and 却 are very similar in the meaning。but，there is some difference in the emotion of them。
such as
我认为这是对的，可是你不这么认为
我认为这是对的，你却不这么认为
我认为这是对的，可是你却不这么认为
the emotion of stress about “你（you）”，become more and more heavy。

Well looks like some one was not studying hard enough… Just kiding although you do have to study really hard to improve in anything. I’m gonna be a cartoonist or a auto engineer ( probably gonna be an auto engineer and in free time try to start making a mini or big cartoon book ) any ways this is actualy true and and could happen in on the other side thanks again!!
=)

According to what I have studied so far the simple construction should be the following one:

Subject + 一起 + Verb
Ex. 他们一起学习下棋。

or

Subject + 跟 + subject + 一起 + Verb
他跟他的学生一起学习下棋。
他们俩跟秋老师一起学习下棋。

For this reason I do not recognise the construction used in the original sentence. Is it correct like that as well? If you could find some references that show usage could you please post them together with your reply. Thanks!